17. Carolyn
17
CAROLYN
A t midnight, I pulled back the curtain in the living room to see Zach sitting in his car down the street. I’d gotten through the evening, smiling at Austin and pretending everything was fine. Daddy had to work, I’d told him, but I assured him Daddy would be there the next day. I hoped that was true. Austin’s crestfallen face when he realized Zach wasn’t putting him to bed had nearly broken my already damaged heart.
I dialed Zach’s number and saw his phone screen light up in the dark vehicle. “Come inside, Zach,” I said without preamble. “There’s no reason for you to be sitting out there.”
“I’m fine where I am,” he insisted.
“Austin missed you.” I didn’t say that I’d missed having him across the dinner table, watching television with him in the evening, and snuggling next to him.
“I’ll stop in in the morning to see him.”
“Really, Zach?” I let my annoyance show in my voice.
“Get some sleep, Carolyn,” he said and clicked off.
Damn . I tossed the phone aside and went up to my lonely bed, but I didn’t sleep. The feeling of abandonment in my chest was too sharp, too familiar from my childhood experiences with my father and my previous experience with Zach. Maybe I’d been na?ve to think it could be different now. I knew that the happy fairy tale life wasn’t meant for me.
Zach seemed committed this time, but perhaps not to me. He was committed to being a father to Austin, which I couldn’t fault him for. I’d felt, though, that a strong bond was forming between me and Zach. We were parents and lovers together. Ah, damn. I collapsed back on my pillow, forcing myself to close my eyes but knowing that sleep wouldn’t come.
Bleary-eyed, I answered the door to Zach’s knock early the following morning.
“You have a key,” I said after greeting him.
“It’s your house.” His tone was, at best, matter of fact.
I sighed. “It is my house, which is why I gave you a key.”
“Is Austin up?”
So that’s the way it was going to be. “Not yet, but he’s stirring. You get him while I make breakfast.”
Over the monitor in the kitchen, I could hear the interaction between father and son. Austin happily babbled away. I should be pleased that they had such a good relationship. Instead, I felt excluded since Zach was blocking me out. I poured pancake batter onto the griddle in perfect circles, controlling my motions as I tried to control my feelings.
“Mama,” Austin greeted me when Zach carried him into the kitchen.
“Hi, baby.” I went to him, taking him in my arms and ignoring the tingle that raced through me when my hand brushed against Zach’s. “Ready for pancakes?”
While Zach cut Austin’s food into kid-sized bites, I noticed that Zach had changed his clothes while upstairs and tried to decide what that meant. It was probably just an indication that he needed to get to work soon.
“Coffee?” I asked as I put Austin in his high chair.
“I’ll get it,” he responded without looking at me.
Since I wanted breakfast to seem as normal as possible for Austin, I talked about how Austin was going to his grandma’s house today while I went to a meeting at the store with the insurance adjusters. Zach contributed almost nothing to the conversation. The few things he said were directed at Austin.
We’d barely finished eating when Zach declared he needed to go. I carried Austin to the door to wave bye-bye to Daddy and saw Zach’s duffel bag sitting in the foyer. My stomach sank as I realized what that meant. He was moving out the few items he’d moved in, sending me the message that whatever was between us was over without any discussion. I met his eyes over the top of Austin’s head and knew I couldn’t keep the hurt out of mine.
“I’ll be back later to see Austin,” Zach said, as if that made it all better.
I only nodded and held perfectly still when Zach kissed Austin goodbye and left. Fortunately, our son was too young to pick up on the tension between his parents—because it had been extreme. Not what I needed when I was facing a business in ruins and a saboteur.
“Mama needs to get ready for the day,” I said to Austin. Upstairs, I applied makeup to cover up the signs of my sleepless night and put on my favorite dress, a magenta one with a tucked waist and full skirt. I opted for practical flats because of the fire scene, but I needed clothing to be my armor today. Facing everything would be easier if I felt good about how I looked.
In All That Sparkles’ office, remarkably untouched by the fire, I made phone calls to suppliers and customers explaining about the fire and assuring them that it would be business as usual again as soon as possible. In the afternoon, the insurance adjuster arrived, an experience I dreaded since he’d been at my store just weeks ago following the robbery.
My worry grew when the adjuster walked through the rubble, taking notes and saying nothing. I tried to ask a few questions, but his answers were brief or unhelpful, so I waited.
“Ms. Evert,” he finally said, “I have serious concerns about paying on this incident.”
“The fire inspector said?—”
He cut me off. “My company received his preliminary report, and we agree that it was arson.”
“So what’s the problem?” Why were they acting as if I were guilty of something?
The inspector shuffled through a stack of papers and pulled out a sheet. “We’re aware of the amount of debt the business is currently carrying.”
The paper was a balance sheet from the previous month, showing just how little was left after I met expenses. Full disclosure required me to report my business statements to the insurer, but I didn’t see what my debt had to do with paying on my claim. “Remodeling the store was costly, and rotating debt is typical of the jewelry business as we buy and sell merchandise.”
“I’m aware of the nature of your business, but your debt is enough to trigger an internal audit and raise suspicions.”
I suddenly saw where this was going. “Are you suggesting that I caused this?” I waved my hand at the burned-out remains of my showroom.
“It’s been known to happen. A business gets in financial trouble and?—”
“I am not in financial trouble,” I insisted. “My cash flow is tight, I’ll admit that, but that’s because I’m investing so much into making the store the best that it can be. You think I paid for all those renovations when my plan was to burn them all down? I’m committed to this store, and that’s why I give it everything I’ve got. And that’s why I’ll be repairing and reopening it as quickly as possible.”
“We’ll wait for the final report on the fire and the police investigation before issuing any kind of payment,” the adjuster concluded.
Biting my tongue to hold back a sharp retort, I escorted the adjuster out the temporary plywood front door. As he drove away, I turned to survey the exterior. Other than the blown-out glass and some smoke damage to the bricks, the building had held up and passed a safety inspection. At least I didn’t have the worry of a structural problem.
As I was turning to re-enter the building, a hard metal object pressed into the small of my back. I stiffened, having no doubt it was a gun. How had I not noticed someone on the street?
“Open the door and get inside,” a male voice commanded in my ear, his breath hot on my neck.
The thought that this was a simple robbery never crossed my mind. No, this was the person responsible for the sabotage. The one who wanted to see my business destroyed. And if he’d come here in person, to confront me directly, that meant that he’d decided it was time for me to die. Knowing my life depended on it, I went through the door. Inside, I whirled around to face the man, putting a little distance between us and keeping my hands clear. My heart was racing with fear, but on the surface, I remained calm.
I studied the intruder, taking in little details about him. A narrow scar ran from his right ear to his chin. He limped slightly, favoring his left leg as he prowled back and forth in front of me. I searched my memory. Those two details felt familiar, as if he was someone I’d met before. But where?
“I know you,” I said, opening the conversation.
“I’ve been here before, talked to you on the phone even.”
The cadence of his voice filled in the blank for me. “You work for my IT company.” He’d been one of the techs on the team that set up equipment for us after the remodel.
“Very good, princess,” he snarled. “What’s my name?”
I searched my memory. Dan? No. Dale. I didn’t think he’d ever given his last name, but I couldn’t shake the idea that I knew him in some other way. I’d seen him more recently, but in what capacity? The memory of an image I’d seen during my online research came to me. Except it wasn’t him. It was someone he resembled. I took a guess. “You’re Dale. Dale Huntly.” The son of my mother’s former partner. My instinct had been right after all. The sabotage was connected with Marta Huntly, even if she wasn’t the one carrying it out. It was a hollow victory, considering he had a gun pointed straight at me.
“Smarter than I thought you were, princess,” he said.
“You’re the one trying to destroy my business?” I wanted the truth from him.
He smiled, a terrible smile. “How’s it feel to finally face me?”
How did it feel? It felt infuriating. Maddening. I wanted to yell at him, but I needed to buy some time so I could plan how to get away from him. My mind was drawing a blank, too dominated by fear and loathing.
“The robbery?” I questioned to get him talking.
“Yeah, I started with that. Robberies look bad to customers. I thought you’d take more of a hit there—even thought that maybe I’d get lucky and you’d end up catching a bullet. Hell knows that the guy was jumpy enough that someone was bound to get shot. Didn’t expect it to be him, but it worked out for me in the end, thanks to you finishing him off for me. Thanks for tying up my loose end.”
I wanted to shiver at his gratitude. “And the orders and email? That must have been easy for you, considering your access to my accounts.”
“Sure. I just did a little dancing around in the coding to hide my tracks. Since I work with morons, I didn’t think they’d be able to track it back to me. I was right until you sent in the expert.” His expression changed to one more sinister.
“Steve?”
“Yeah, the guy knows his shit. He was closing in on me, but I got a little revenge.”
“Against him?” I hoped not. Zach’s friend was doing me a favor.
“Against you , princess. It’s all about getting you and yours. Just so you know, I rearranged your employees’ direct deposits and transferred money out of your accounts. Going to clean you out.” He seemed to feel a sense of triumph. “But the fire was the best. It was fun watching it burn.”
He’d been in the crowd, then. That figured. I’d done some reading about arson and had seen that the arsonists usually enjoyed watching their work.
“At first I was hoping you were the one in the building,” he continued, “but it was your sister. Then I decided that would be fitting. Too bad she lived.”
My fear was dissipating, and I’d mostly mastered my anger, even in the face of his comment about Charlotte. I needed to be calm, to face him as an adversary as I’d learned in all my years of martial arts training. Anger would solve nothing. Control and mastery of my movements were all that mattered.
“You haven’t said why,” I said, keeping my voice bland. “Why target me and my store?”
“Your mama didn’t explain it to you?”
“I know our mothers were in business together, and they dissolved it.” I didn’t bring up that his mother had been sleeping with my father.
“Your mother screwed her over is more like it.” His tone became belligerent. “Wasn’t enough to take the business away from her, was it? She had to go and trash her name around town, too.”
I couldn’t imagine my mom going around badmouthing anyone…but Springwell was a small town, and since Marta and my dad had been openly together, people had probably been able to draw their own conclusions. It didn’t seem like a good idea to bring that up, though. “I—I’m sorry to hear that,” I said instead.
“Do you know what that did to her?” Dale kept rolling up on the balls of his feet and back down as he spoke, putting himself off balance. I might be able to take advantage of that.
“Tell me,” I invited softly.
“She kept getting fired from job after job, plus there was me and Gloria to raise. We lived on nothing, while you and your sister got everything you wanted. Regular little princesses.”
That wasn’t even remotely true, but he seemed to believe it. He also didn’t seem to realize his mom might have gotten fired from jobs because she wasn’t a good worker. But from the sound of it, Marta had been happy to blame all her problems on Mom, and her son had followed her lead.
“And then Gloria died.”
“That’s too bad,” I said, sympathetically. “She must have been young.”
“Nineteen. Cancer. And we couldn’t afford the treatments.” He waved the gun at me again, his finger poised over the trigger. “That’s your family’s fault, all of it. Gloria’s death and Mama’s. They died because your mother took everything away from us.”
I wanted to argue, to defend my family, but I knew that nothing I could say would get through to him. He’d been wrapped up in his sense of grievance for so long that he’d lost the ability to be rational. All he cared about was hurting someone. Hurting me . I felt my stomach sink. How was I going to get out of this alive?
I heard my phone ring from the office. I’d left it there while talking to the adjuster. The buzzing seemed to spark something in Dale. His eyes gleamed with hatred and fanaticism.
“Now it’s time to even the score.”